French Nice??? – Buying a Wine Barrell

It's not easy living in France (or any 'other' country). We don't really understand 'them'. Most cultural mores are ingrained in childhood and we don't understand our own let alone someone else's. So, we all get frustrated at times…which is what makes it interesting. But, the French can be very nice, overly helpful, even.Shortly after we moved to our place in the Vendee it was time to pick the grapes; make the wine. We decided that we would like a new oak barrel for the white wine. I looked up wine-making in the 'pages jaune' and found a likely looking address for supplies. Off we went. Of course, we couldn't find it. We drove around for a bit, having the the usual marital discussions when lost, then stopped at the local tourist office. I did the required 'Excusez-moi pour vous deranger mais j'ai une petite probleme' and proceeded to explain, as best I could, that we had just moved to the area, had wine grapes that were almost ready and we needed to buy a new wine barrel. (I'm told it helps to give personal information about the problem so that the person you are asking for help 'knows' you). Then I showed her the name and address of the shop we were looking for. 'Non, non' she said. That is a commercial site and they only sell very large, professional equipment. I gave her a smiling 'Merci' and we headed for the door. She called us back and said her cousin made wine, maybe he would know where to buy a barrel. If we would wait a minute, she'd call him. She called the cousin, who wasn't home. His wife was, though, and she suggested that mayor's secretary might know. So the nice Tourist Office lady called the mayor's secretary, who didn't know of anyplace either, but hang, on…the mayor ought to know. Well the mayor didn't know where to buy the barrel, but he wanted to know if we knew anything about making wine. The question was relayed and we admitted complete and total ignorance. 'Mais non!' How could they (being Frenchmen) allow us to mishandle the vendange! We must be helped! The mayor knew of a friend of his nephew's that might be of help. We had now been in the tourist office, trying to leave, for 45 minutes. The tourist lady now tried to explain about the friend of the nephew and what he could do for us and my French had a complete collapse. I, smilingly, thanked her profusely and once again we started to leave. As we got to the door a young man walked in. The lady behind the desk greets him (as required) and asked him if he spoke English as she was trying to help us but we have reached a language impasse. He looks at us and smiles, which requires greetings all 'round. He then explained that he didn't speak any English, but his girlfriend did and if we'd wait right there he'd go fetch her. 10 minutes later he is back with the girlfriend, who speaks less English than I do French – in other words, no help at all. We struggle on, but the quest has changed: Now we are no longer looking for a wine barrel but are looking for someone to instruct us in the fine art of wine-making. The situation has gotten totally out of hand but I can't think of a nice way to stop it. It's like a runaway train with no brakes! Every time I think of a way to say thank you and leave someone else has a friend of a cousin of an uncle of a friend that would be happy to help. The Tourist Lady has the phone permanently attached to her ear. My only hope is that it's getting close to 1:00 – lunch time. No French person ever misses lunch. Life, traffic, everything comes to a halt. We have now been in the tourist office over 2 hours. The lady, finally puts her hand over the receiver and joyfully tells us that she has found someone who will come to our house that night (45 minutes away) and teach us how to make wine. Now what the hell do we do?!? Mon mari is absolutely no help – he's over staring out the window, having clearly established that he speaks no french. I manage to think to tell her that we had something planned and then, finally, a thought entered my feeble brain in a timely enough manner that I could express it in french before the subject changed: I just remembered (I told them) that the nephew of our neighbor's friend's father (it seemed important to make and/or express the relationship in the most complicated way possible) would be visiting on the week end and he spoke English. I'm sure that our neighbors would then be able to answer our questions/properly instruct us. It was happily agreed by everyone that it would be much better for our neighbors to help us than an outsider. We all exchanged the 4 Vendeen kisses (we're all friends by now), we promised to stop back at the tourist office and tell her how the wine turned out and we are free to leave. Nearly 3 hours later we are back on the road, exhausted….and still no clue as to where to buy the new wine barrel…. For another take on French nice check out Sam's blog

Aren’t these situations so wierd? I can’t stand a conversation that drones on and on after it has been “completed” in my opinion. But they really went out of their way to help and that’s hard to find these days from anyone.